


rushing towards the skyline

by FreshBrains



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 13:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia was the rabbit.  She was <i>always</i> the rabbit.</p><p>(Pacific Rim AU with Lydia as a mathematician and Scott and Derek as Jaeger co-pilots).</p>
            </blockquote>





	rushing towards the skyline

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AvaRosier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/gifts).



> To my wonderful friend [AvaRosier](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier), who requested a Lydia/Scott Pacific Rim fusion. Some of the Pacific Rim characters are mentioned, but I didn't add it as a fandom because they never make an official appearance. I did research, but I'm no Jaeger expert, so any and all corrections are welcome.

Lydia tried hard not to be jealous of the drift. She tried hard because she tried hard at everything she did, but sometimes for lack of trying, she wished she made the decision to become a Jaeger pilot when she was twelve like Scott did.

It wasn't personal, even though Lydia never connected with the Hale family like her friends did. Derek was the only person Scott ever drifted with, and Scott always said that he’d never drift with anyone else. He didn't want to be in anyone else’s head. Not Stiles, not Allison, and definitely not Lydia.

“Derek and I are drift compatible because we’re incompatible in every other way,” Scott explained one day, nose slightly scrunched in concentration. Lydia could tell he didn't quite understand it himself, but she got it. Derek was stoic where Scott was all smiles, Derek kept quiet while Scott laughed, Derek kept his emotions bottled inside while Scott tried to work his out with his friends. Derek was a complicated person whose complications made sense to Scott.

So Lydia tried hard not to be jealous of the fact that Derek saw parts of Scott that Lydia could never see—not because Scott didn't want to tell her, but because she wanted to know Scott better than anyone else.

Lydia liked knowing. She _needed_ to know.

*

Lydia fell in love with Scott in the tiny third grade refugee classroom when they were just kids. They lived down the hall in the old high school science classroom with Lydia’s mom, Scott’s mom, the Stilinski family, and the Argent family in nine tiny army cots next to racks of ancient, useless Bunsen burners and boiling flasks.

“Why would you want to do that? Jaeger pilots die. And they get headaches.” Lydia’s priorities were a little shaky when she was a pre-teen girl growing up in inland California where the Kaiju still couldn't reach (but the aftershocks did).

“But they save people. They help. And c’mon, don’t you think it would be fun, being all high up there in the clouds like a giant?” Scott was innocent too, innocent in a different way. He only saw the shimmering, glimmering side of the Jaeger pilots, the side carefully manufactured for TV commercials and toys. He didn't yet understand how losing a co-pilot was like losing a limb, how the drift was the most painful and beautiful thing in the world.

Lydia sighed in disapproval, the same way she did whenever people didn't agree with her. “I’d only let you do it if I could make you safe. I’d make you so safe so you would never get hurt, and you’d get all of the Kaiju and save everyone else. Okay?”

Scott smiled. “Okay, Lydia. I promise.”

*

And he kept his promise, so Lydia spent her years on the floor, in the labs, hovering around the mechanics and engineers and software developers, learning everything there was to learn about the Jaegers while Scott attended the Academy. She was always surrounded by a gaggle of assistants and interns who juggled clipboards and smartphones and coffee cups, taking down notes and asking questions. 

She worked her way from a pre-Jaeger aerospace engineer, to an actuary dealing in literally the most dangerous job in the history of jobs (and killing at it, pun intended), to a statistician working right at Pentecost’s left elbow for three years, and finally, to the woman everyone went to when there were dollar signs and danger in the same sentence. She knew how much danger cost, and she could tell you how much you’d have to pay for safety. 

In the process, Lydia calculated that Scott, her Scott, was eventually going to die.

It was much more shocking than a level-headed woman such as herself would expect it to be.

When she told Scott the news with tears in her eyes, he slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight to his chest, but he didn't laugh at her. “I could’ve told you that without the math, Lydia. Even though the math _is_ super impressive.”

“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered into his neck. This was one of those times when she really, really hated being so damn smart. Those times did not come often.

“Then I won’t. Only when you say I can, okay?” He kissed her forehead.

She laughed. “That’s so morbid! I’m not telling you when to die.”

This time, he did laugh. “Then I guess we’ll both have to live forever. This is the only logical solution.”

“I do appreciate logic, Scott McCall.”

“I know you do.”

*  
History after the Kaiju was murky. There were too many sad moments and too many happy moments, and unfortunately, Lydia remembered them all.

Happy moment: Erica and Boyd get married. They spent three years on the coast in the sun before becoming the first married Jaeger pilots (they came before Cherno Alpha, before everyone else). 

Sad moment: Erica and Boyd die on their fifth drop due to an electrical malfunction. They manage to send the Kaiju back down under before going under themselves.

Happy moment: They die together.

Sad moment: They are still gone. Two of Lydia’s six childhood friends are gone, and there is nothing she can do.

Happy moment: Lydia, Scott, Allison, and Stiles meet Talia, Laura, and Derek Hale in a refugee camp outside of San Francisco, and they stick together through everything. Talia and Laura become the first (and only) mother-daughter Jaeger co-pilots. Derek becomes the head mechanic in Cabo San Lucas but returns in a year, missing his family too much.

Sad moment: Talia gets sick (so, _so_ fast) and dies in Laura’s arms. They’re both still wearing their drivesuits. Their Jaeger _Lupa Tibera_ is retired. 

Happy moment: Laura and Derek go to Canada with their faithful scientist Stiles in their wake and co-pilot the _Fenrir Ice_ and meet the Becket brothers somewhere along the way. Laura develops a crush. So does Stiles. Laura becomes the first pilot to successfully drift with more than one person—which was also a major scientific breakthrough, thanks to Stiles.

Sad moment: Stiles’ Becket brother dies and Laura’s leaves to build barriers.

Happy moment: Laura and Derek call to tell Lydia and Scott they’re coming home.

Sad moment: Laura never makes it back.

Happy moment: Scott and Derek spend more time together. They never become best friends (Stiles is the only best friend Scott can ever have), but they become something stranger, something heavily forged. They become brothers.

This is when the sad moments stop for a while, but Lydia learns to expect them. She learns to never smile too wide; never snuggle too deep into the warm circle of Scott’s arms.

There will always be a sad moment following a happy moment. 

That’s the post-Kaiju world for you.

*

Lydia is running, as always. She’s always running on the floor, back and forth, wide-eyed and shouting along with the bevy of analysts and engineers who both need her opinion and need to tell her _their_ opinions. She’s running, and she’s so glad women don’t wear heels anymore, because she feels like she hasn't stopped running in years.

She’s running when Stiles calls her from LOCCENT (he’s in mission control with Allison after being exposed to too much Kaiju blood; Derek insisted, with much cajoling). His voice is tight but not yet panicked, and it makes Lydia halt in the middle of the hallway.

“There was a problem.”

“No, no, there are no problems. I oversaw everything myself, there cannot be a problem.” Lydia was never popular in LOCCENT, she oversaw the overseeing a little too much. It was a good thing Allison was head technician, or else Lydia would've been thrown over the observation deck years ago.

“It’s the drift, Lydia.”

*

Lydia was the rabbit. She was _always_ the rabbit.

Lydia had her fair share of personal sad moments as well, but they never hit her as hard as they hit Scott. She was tough and resourceful; she never stayed down for long. After the miscarriage, she grieved, but Scott grieved harder. When she found out there could never be another miscarriage, she was relieved, yet Scott still grieved.

There were other injuries—Scott’s pinkie, ring finger, and middle finger on his right hand were ghosts, pinched off in a suit malfunction. Lydia had a scar running down the left side of her forehead, over her eye, and across her cheek from a piece of broken glass after a window broke over the observation deck due to a training accident, which left her partially blind. They both were getting older, no longer children in camps running away from the problems but adults running towards them, because they were never ones to sit still and watch the world burn.

Derek was already out when Lydia got to the floor, his helmet visor up, stripping down to his circuitry suit. His eyes were wild and he had that dazed look, the kind that said he wasn’t fully his own person yet, and Lydia’s heart pounded frantically.

“Where is he, what happened?”

Derek was fine—two arms, two legs, no blood. He’d be okay. But she didn't see Scott anywhere.

“He was chasing a rabbit,” Derek mumbled, breathing heavily through his nose. “We completed the mission, but I couldn't get him out. I practically had to pilot back myself.” He looked at Lydia, up and down, and settled his gaze on her flat stomach, covered in a neat suit and a lab coat, despite not working in the lab for six years. “Blood, there was blood everywhere…you were screaming…”

Lydia shook her head wildly. “Stop, I don’t want to know. You don’t have to tell me.” She raced past Derek as Stiles came rushing down to the floor to gather the shed chunks of his drivesuit.

“I had to detach the Conn-Pod. We were in the water for a while,” Derek said, but Lydia was already running towards the giant opening towards the ocean where the Conn-Pod was being hauled in.

“Lydia?”

Scott was lying on the metal grate, surrounded by the medical team. He was soaked to the bone, the left arm of his drivesuit gouged and twisted, but he was smiling at Lydia.

Lydia dropped to her knees, cupping Scott’s face in her hands. “How could you?”

Scott laughed. “It happens. Lydia, come on, this stuff happens all the time.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, but her hands wouldn't stop shaking. “You could’ve died out there, you jerk! You can’t chase a rabbit in a drop!”

Scott flopped onto the ground, still smiling. “It was a routine drop, a level one Kaiju. It was like fighting a hamster.” He sat up on his elbows and let the medical team remove his suit. “And besides, you still haven’t given me permission to die.”

Lydia cried, but only a little. “You’re right, I haven’t.” She realizes then that no matter how jealous she got of the drift, she didn't want to see those things that made Scott lose focus. She never wanted to lose focus of _him_.

“So I guess you’re stuck with me for a little while longer,” Scott said.

Lydia still cried, but leaned down to kiss her pilot.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" by Florence and the Machine.


End file.
